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Who owns the water service line in Tukwila, WA

Which part of the pipe is yours

  • Water service line

    Yours from your property line to your building — if certain conditions are met

    Why, and what to do
your buildingproperty linesidewalkstreetmain
The thick length is yours. A dashed marker means the position depends on your property — see below.

If something’s wrong

Who to call first about the water service line

BelowGrid has no first-call guidance on file from Tukwila about the water service line.

The documents this answer is built on

Who is responsible for which part

Tukwila connects a property to its water main by a service pipe to the property line and keeps that connection. Section 14.04.050 of the Tukwila Municipal Code provides for "a service pipe extending at right angles from the main to the property line and including a stopcock placed within the lines of the street curb, which connection shall thereafter be maintained and kept within the exclusive control of the City." This is Tukwila's own statement.

Tukwila
The service pipe from the main to the property line, with its stopcock within the lines of the street curb.
The property owner
The code does not say in terms who maintains the pipe beyond the City's connection at the property line. Section 14.04.230 keeps the meters City property and charges owners or occupants for meters lost, injured or broken by their carelessness or negligence.

What decides which applies

The City's connection ends at the property line. Nothing the City publishes in its water code says who repairs the pipe on the property; ask the Public Works Department before paying for work on it. About 40% of Tukwila's land is inside the City's water service area as the Washington State Department of Health maps it, and this answer applies only inside that area. Other systems serve most of the city under their own rules: King County Water District No. 125 about 26%, Seattle Public Utilities about 15%, Highline Water District about 13%, Renton about 4% and King County Water District No. 20 under 1%. Check the name on your water bill.

Sources

Tukwila Municipal Code section 14.04.050, Connection Procedure (Ord. 2313, 2010)

Checked

What the pipe is made of

Washington publishes no statewide inventory of what service lines are made of. Each water system filed its own with the State, and federal rules require the utility to make it public, so the utility is the place to ask what is recorded for this address.

Tukwila: official site

What this page cannot tell you

  • This describes who is responsible for which part of the pipe. It is not a record of what your own service line is made of.
  • This answer applies inside the area the State maps for Tukwila's own water system, which does not follow the city limits: some addresses in the city are served by another supplier, and some outside it are served by the city. An address search checks which side an address is on.
  • This authority's service line inventory - the record of which pipes are lead, and where - has not been matched here yet. Ask the utility for yours.
Tukwila: official site

Your other pipe: the sewer lateral

The sewer lateral leaving your property is a separate pipe, run by a separate authority, and who is responsible for it is decided separately. In many places the two answers are opposites.

Sewer lateral requirements in Tukwila, WA

Look up a specific address

This page describes what applies to properties in Tukwila in general. To see which authorities serve one address, and what records exist for it, search for it.

Search for an address